Lack of training or gung-ho stupidity?

Question

How can American pilots, flying state of the art, supersonic aircraft and deploying million dollar "smart bombs", still manage to kill their comrades and allies, with friendly fire?
Smart bombs, once locked on, will destroy their targets. The blame has to fall on the human who locks it on. Why do these "accidents" continue to happen? Can't they learn?

Answer 1

The pilots wanted an excuse to return home early! They know nothing is going to happen to them for friendly fire events! They can't get pilots any more, but who wants them anyway! I bet they were gop pilots! It doesn't get any simpler than if you don't know who your shooting at you don't shoot!

Answer 2

uhgrant100 has given a very definitive answer. Several others are also very much in line but those blaming the pilots are simply not rational. I have sat taking fire from forces 10 times mine and prayed the jets would come and deliver even of they hit me and mine by accident (back in the day when the pilots did decide their runs and released manually). The fact is that war is chaos, s**t breaks or doesn't quite work exactly right, both in the air and on the ground, a platoon may be spread over 2-300 yards and the person calling in the fire may not know exactly where his most forward elements are. One of the enemy may get in a 'lucky' shot and hit the smart bomb with a 50 cal. Then what is going to happen? Maybe it deflects into friendlies. Frankly, I am surprised it does not happen more often. The US forces likely have a higher percentage because our press is more embedded in our forward areas and so reporting is more accurate. Plus, whose forces have been engaged most often in wars and police actions in the last 30 years? And the same d**n liberals that cry about friendly casualties and are the first to want the US to return our troops for this or that reason are the very same ones that cry because we don't go into Darfur and get involved in another quagmire with Islamic roots.

Answer 3

One- you only have seconds to ID your target.

Two- Smart bombs can have mechanical problems too.

Three- Lasers reflect sometimes, so a locked on bomb may sometimes follow a reflected laser splash.

Four, the troops in contact were in small arms range, that means they were within the danger zone of the bomb either way.

Five- if for some reason the emitter was damaged, the laser could be off target or cause too much of a splash from the emitter itself causing the bomb to hit the emitter instead, (if it was a ground emitter).

Six- If there was a lot of smoke or dust in the air, it can cause a laser to splash along the beam causing the bomb to lock on the wrong splash again.

So there are lots of things that can happen.

Its easy for someone like you too look at something in hindsight and point fingers, its something else to do it on the scene. Accidents will always happen, they happen in the civilian world just as much with things that are supposed to be safe.

Answer 4

1- Who says they were guided Ordnance?

2- Ever try to recognize a person on the ground while going 600 MPH?

3- What Coordinates were given to the Pilots?

4- Were the Coordinates Correct?

5- How were the Friendly Positions Marked?

VS-17?

Smoke?

IR?

6- How is it that the RAF is INCAPABLE of Providing Close Air Support to it's own Army?

Answer 5

Its not like the soldiers have some kind of "dont hit me" chip implanted in them that would tell one of these smart bombs that they were off target. From 7500+ feet up in the air, I would like to see you distinguish between good guys and bad, and then drop a bomb and we will see how good you are at it. When troops call in ground coordinates of them taking fire, and and air strike is inbound, they have seconds to get out of there before they too become bombed. If you are taking heavy fire, you have the option of getting gunned down as you retreat, or lay suppressive fire until the bomb reached its mark thus suppressing your enemy for good. The minimum safe distance of the smartest of the smart bombs is 3 city blocks. Any closer and you wont be attending dinner later that evening. So you tell me smart one, can you hoof 3 city blocks in about 10 seconds?

Answer 6

Targeting is not done by the pilot. The decision about who to bomb is sometimes based on faulty intelligence, and simple mistakes happen all the time. When the local police are are capable of executing a search warrant on the wrong house why is it so hard to understand targeting errors?

Answer 7

Fratricide happens in armed conflict, that is just a fact. 22 US Marines were killed or wounded by the US Air Force in the battle of An-Nasariyah. It is a tragedy but it does happen.

The UK will not rely on its own air assets for support, instead they use US air power. They also make mistakes in regards to command and control of those assets. So they become dependent on US air support and then do not familiarize themselves with US command and control. My conclusion would have to be that if anyone is to blame it would be the troops from the UK. They routinely misidentify targets, do not communicate their location, or get too close to the intended target.

I do not think troops from the UK are inept, however I do think that their command and control in relation to communication with allied command is inept.

I do not know what happened in this situation however after working with troops from the UK in Iraq I can tell you right now that you should look internally.

Even in the incident where a UK Tornado was shot down by a patriot missile the UK was quick to blame the US. However, in that incident both US and UK personnel determined that the aircraft's IFF indicator malfunctioned. Thereby faulty maintenance, and equipment failure caused it, not US personnel.

Incidents such as this happen when troops fail to properly communicate their location. This exact same thing happened in 1991, and 2003. In both those incidents the UK troops involved were in an area that they were not reported to be in. They in effect failed to communicate their locations properly. As in most cases involving fratricide between the UK and the US, the UK is quick to jump to the conclusion that it is not their fault. Upon scrutiny we find out that it was a lack of communication on behalf of the UK troops. What is sad is that the British will blame the US and then fail to do anything to correct their inability to report their locations to allied command.

I think an investigation will show exactly what I am talking about, in that the UK troops failed to properly communicate their location.

The British are notorious for not knowing where their troops are in the field. They don’t properly communicate with their troops, and then call in US air power for support. Then when it goes South they blame the US without addressing the fact that their command and control in relation to air support sucks.

Whenever I interact with people from the UK I get a sense of general arrogance on their part. From my interaction with them, and their military forces in particular I would say that the arrogance they portray is completely unjustified.

If anyone has a "dumb" military its you guys, you cannot keep track of your people, you dont know where they are, you call in air support in areas that they have moved into, and they get killed.

Get your own house in order before you blame other people for your own incompetence.

You wanted to know why these accidents happen, this is why.

Answer 8

The guy on the ground has to send his coordinates and where he wants the bomb dropped.
If he makes a small error in his numbers,the bomb can come TOO CLOSE.

Answer 9

From the news report it might have been due to the close proximity of the Brits when they called it in. some times you have to call it in close to save More lives then it could passably take

Answer 10

The day you come up with the perfect solution to friendly fire, I will elect you as my president...
NEXT TIME DO A LITTLE BIT OF RESEARCHING ON THE ART OF WAR AND MILITARY TACTICS BEFORE MAKING A FOOL OF YOURSELF AGAIN.

Answer 11

Do you know what it takes to control such technology? You make it sound like it is as easy as playing a video game.

Please do some research and watching the movie "Stealth" doesn't count.